Starting New and Raising Capital

Sarah Eder

Alfonso: Tonight the REITE club's success story with Sarah Eder. A professional investor, CEO of Sarah Eder Investments. Sarah coaches, and veterans now on how to successfully market themselves online, raise capital and grow a portfolio. Sarah is now, but it was a few short years ago. I think you're wandering around the networking event and we sat down and I think we were both late, we've got like the last two seats and it was in Kitchener.

I remember sitting beside Sarah and I was like, hey, how's it going? What do you don't care to learn about real estate? And I was like, me too here to meet people. And all those years later, no, my, if you heard the REITE club, you should come check out the REITE club. And you know what, it's been like an avalanche has been an amazing success and the other audit firm I want to give you a personal congratulations as well, too, that you're engaged now as well. Congratulations on all your success. You're such an amazing person. Welcome, tonight and share your story with the REITE club.

Sarah: Thank you so much for that introduction. That was so nice Alfonso. Thank you. It is actually such an honor to be here, to speak about a girl success story of the REITE club. Yeah, really what Alfonso was saying is completely true. Just a few short years ago, I was on the other side of the stage. I was just the student in the back of the room just trying to get my start in real estate, just wanting to network and figure out what all the big players in the real estate world were doing.

I'm on the other side of the stage and it's mind boggling sometimes to think that I've made it. In such a short period of time, but I'm really grateful to be here and to share my story with you guys. I love sharing my story more or less because it is definitely an underdog story. I like to use it as an inspiration to show people exactly what can be possible for you in real estate. I feel like this is needed now more than ever. We're in a really challenging environment. Now, I want to show you guys that, with a lot of perseverance and hard work and determination, you can absolutely make something of yourself in the real estate world.

As Alfonso was saying, I was not always the poised, polished real estate investor that you guys have probably seen on social media and all the deals you guys have probably seen me do. I really only embarked on the real estate world, about three and a half years ago. And I came from very humble beginnings. I was about 28 years old when I first started investing like any 20 something year old. I was not that smart with my money.

When I was younger, I had a lot of challenges that I encountered. I got myself into trouble. I had a failed first business.
For those of you that don't know my backstory, I was actually a professional athlete. Now I am a successful professional athlete. However, unless you're an NBA star, you don't make a lot of money as an average athlete. Having a lot of things provided for me as an athlete through sponsorships. When I came into the real world realized really quickly that I was in for some trouble, I had really bad credit.

I had never had T4 income. I didn't have a lot of savings set aside. And so, I was certainly in a position where I needed a lot of help. I needed a way out of my situation. And so when I discovered the REITE club, when I discovered real estate investing in general, my world totally changed around not to say that there weren't struggles along the way, again, for a person who has no income, no credit, no capital to get started in the real estate world. It was really hard. It was like pushing a boulder uphill. I really didn't know where to start or how I was going to gain financial freedom through real estate investing. I just knew that this is the road I wanted to go. And so over the course of these few years, I have treated real estate like a religion, like a professional education.

I have gone to more networking. You can possibly imagine I've taken more mentorship courses, training, seminars, anything I could get my hands on to network and learn from others who had done it before me to become an expert in my field and slowly but surely. I grew from my experience. I grew my knowledge. I gained my practical skills that I needed to become a joint venture partner. And so that's how I initially grew my portfolio and still do to this day. We have over 40 multi-family properties right now, all held with joint venture partners. We've been commercial real estate, apartment buildings, land development flips, you name it all through leveraging other people's money.

Through my marketing background, Through all the skills I learned through networking and mentorship. I was able to get partners on board that trusted in my vision and slowly but surely just started to acquire properties. I gained more of a reputation in my given markets. It was really able to succeed and gain financial freedom. I think within my first year of real estate investing I actually was able to quit my job. I've been doing this under my own company for over two and a half years now which is really exciting and makes more money in passive income than I ever imagined possible in a very short period of time.

That's definitely why I wanted to come on tonight and again so grateful that they asked me to be here because I want to share this with you guys. It doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter whether you have debts, whether you don't have a lot of income to get started. All about providing value, raising capital and, really just trying to find creative ways to enter the real estate investing space. And if you focus on self-development and you focus on your own education you will find a way to grow a portfolio to get into the real estate industry. Because once you get a foothold, that's all you need to continue to leverage and grow over time.

Alfonso: Sarah, like I said when we first met in Kitchener and at the time it was right at the early beginnings right? And coming out there, and you'd been really an integral part of the community right from the beginnings. And maybe you can share with the new recovers or maybe this is the first exposure, the second, or heard a little bit about us, how the REITE club has maybe contributed to getting some more of those connections, that knowledge, all those types of things. But for those that may be the first getting introduced to the REITE club and thank you guys for giving us the opportunity to do your attention.

Sarah: Absolutely. I really contribute the connections that I made at the REITE club to my success in so many ways. I do believe that getting mentorship, like whether it's formal mentorship or just the guidance of other people who have done it, is so integral and people like Alfonso and Sarah. Now that we're actually quite close they were huge in the beginning. I remember Alfonso used to go for lunch quite often. We would go and I would just pick his brain for several hours about, how should I scale this and how should I push this to my joint venture partners? What do you think I should be doing next?

Sarah actually helped me get a little more knowledgeable, the Brantford market, which I've invested heavily in the past few years without those connections in these people that I could trust and reach out to, it would have been a much harder journey and showing up every week. And getting to listen to these other amazing accomplished investors on stage gave me that hope, gave me that encouragement to just keep going. And it was meeting other investors at my level, too, that we could give each other like support along the way. It's been such a great experience.

Alfonso: That's so amazing, Sarah. It's amazing to see. And you know what after these years, as well too, we've been able to make sure that it's not muted and the mic is on after all these years, too. It's arguable, it's a struggle, so they'll be getting it and that kind of stuff. Thank you so much for sharing guys, please get in touch with Sarah. She's amazing. And it's just such an inspiring story, all the stories that we heard tonight, all the REITE club community, guys, we all start from somewhere, you can't have light without dark. You can't have a sweet without bitterness. And it's such an awesome story. Thank you so much.